WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 7

And on the first day of November, time for a new thread.

We have only 61 days left in this year. Do you have some reading plans you never got to but you still want to actually follow before the clock turns into 2024? Did you start planning your 2024?

Come and tell us what you are reading, what had you been reading and what you plan to read. :)

I finished Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery (translated from the French by Thomas W. Cushing). Proud Beggars, first published in 1955, brings us the tale of three men living in a poor section of Cairo. The narrative revolves around three friends who have more or less chosen their impoverished status, their sarcastic views of the "bastards and thieves" who control societies power structure and the joy they find in the small details of humanity and urban life. When a young prostitute is murdered in nearby brothel in what appears to be a motiveless crime, into the picture comes police inspector Nour El Dine who feels in the solving of such crimes and punishment of their perpetrators not any compassion for the victims but instead a maintenance of order, a defense of the status quo. Our three heroes take him on gleefully as a worthy if not particularly threatening adversary. And Nour El Dine has his own dissatisfactions and doubts. I found some flaws in the narrative perspective Cossery offers, but overall found this novel entertaining and rewarding. My longer review is viewable on my Club Read thread.

I've now begun The Good Fight, the campaign memoir of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, who ran for president in 1972.

I've had a very slow reading October (6 books only). Hopefully that picks up.

At the moment, I am reading The Last Blade Priest - a fantasy novel which I started in September, had to give back to the library before finishing it, read the 6 books in October and finally got back to it now. Which is unusual - I tend to have more than one book on the go usually. :)

>2 rocketjk: I didn't know that Nour could be a male name.

Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is moving slowly. Working on Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and listening to The Patron Saint of Liars.

Booker audiobook peeps might be interested in the release of The Bee Sting (at 26 hours!). It was actually released Oct 10, but I only found out recently.

I've been very much neglecting these threads again!

But I am currently reading I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum, which I'm finding very much worthwhile.

I just finished Horse and am now listening to The Maid, which I've started for the second time (had to return to library and wait through a very long waiting list to get it again.) On Kindle I am reading The Adventures of Alianore Audley which is just hysterical. In print, I have The Lais of Marie de France from the library which is a follow up to Matrix which I read last month for book club.

I have 11 books to go to meet my self-selected goal of 60 books for the year. It will be a record if I get to 53, which is looking like a sure bet, so I am happy. I still have a number of leftovers I would REALLY like to finish by the end of the year though.

I have my themes picked out for 2024 - had them quite early on in fact! My structure for picking books can be seen on my thread. It'll be much the same next year, though I'm going to try and have fewer categories. I won't be picking my random reads until December probably. But we'll see. I always end up with over 200 books, knowing I will only read about 50.

Oh! And someone mentioned The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Ultimate Reading List in another group, and of course I had to check that out - just came today through ILL. It's published in 2007 but I liked what I saw and ordered a used copy from Amazon. So I'll be figuring out how to incorporate THAT into my 2024 lists....

what did you think of horse?

>8 cindydavid4: I liked it. Review is posted on my thread.

Travel weekend. I’ll finish Plow. Have Sky Above Kharkiv with me, care of avaland. I brought a discworld book too (Guards! Guards!). And Chaucer. Will see where my mood is.

As for 2023 goals, I would still like to squeeze in some more Africa books. I dropped the ball this summer and would like to go back and fill some gaps. But I have lots of great books calling my name, so we'll see where my mood takes me.

I haven't even thought about next year yet!

Today I finished reading My Brother's Voice, a Holocaust memoir. I'm not sure what I'll pick up next. I'm also listening to Apeirogon on audio, but didn't have time to do any listening this week. Tomorrow I'll have an hour alone in the car and will listen then.

My reading habits have changed so much recently that I currently have two non-fiction books on the go (that’s two more than I read in an average year until this year) and only one fiction. I’m tearing through I Shall not Hate: a Gaza Doctor’s Journey, and I’m very near the end of Simone Veil’s memoir Une vie, which I hope to finish this weekend so I can take it back to the library (I tore through this one too, but I’ve slowed down now because the end is of less interest to me). My fiction book is The School for Good Mothers, which drew me in immediately despite the discomfort it makes me feel - but about halfway in I’m starting to wonder if anything is going to happen.

re I shall Not hate, excellent book,Ive been meaning to look up the author, to read his reflections on the current tragedies

>13 cindydavid4: yes, I’ve been meaning to do that too.

>12 rachbxl: I was underwhelmed by School for Good Mothers too.

>15 labfs39: I gave it another go last night but then decided to give up on it. Shame - the premise is excellent but it just didn’t seem like it was going to come good on it. I have too many library books out at the moment to spend time reading something I’m not convinced by, so I jumped into another of them, Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. What a relief - diving into her clear, elegant writing was like taking a refreshing dip in a plunge pool.

We saw the broadway production of that, with Vanessa Redgrave as Joan Didion. loved the book and the play was a most excellent adaptation

I'm fifty pages into Half a Cup of Sand and Sky by Nadine Bjursten, and loving it so far, although I'm also filled with dread, as the Iranian Revolution is looming.

I'm reading In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden - a book about nuns that I'm really enjoying.

For nonfiction, I've just started Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake. I think it's going to be really interesting.

Finishing Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing (interviewer
david Naimon)...an excellent read!

Recently finished reading The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin and looking forward to our book group discussion.

>17 cindydavid4: I'm dubious about Vanessa Redgrave. The only thing I remember seeing her in was a production of The Tempest in the Globe Theatre - she played Prospero. Or rather, she played Vanessa Redgrave playing Prospero - she never seemed to sink into the character, she was very visibly PLAYING it. Made the whole play a bit skewed. Maybe it was too much of a stretch for her (or she was busy noticing that she was playing in the Globe, or...something). This was years ago, 199-something.

well I can tell you that watching her on stage, she was Didion. Ive seen her in movies and liked her acting. but as always YMMV. Did you like Lynn Redgraves roles?

No idea - I'm not sure I ever saw her. I tend to get caught up in the story of a play (or a movie) and forget the actors, and Vanessa didn't let me do that that time...it's one of the very few times I can remember who the actor was in a play I saw. Some kind of mismatch - between her and the role, or me and the play, or me and her as that character, or...something. It was in 2000, I looked it up.

I finished The Good Fight, Shirley Chisholm's campaign memoir about her run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972. It was fascinating and well written, indeed, though it doesn't provide much personal information about Chisholm, the person. Chisholm the politician and activist is quite interesting enough and the book tells of a pivotal time in American history. You can find a longer review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be the Vietnam War combat history, Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann by Keith William Nolan.

I've started Une si longue lettre (such a long letter) by Mariama Bâ. This is a very short book about a Senegalese woman, at the time where Senegal gains independance and society is changing, whose husband takes a second wife. Very well written.

I finished Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which was fun. And I read Sky of Kharkiv, which I'm still thinking about. I'm working through Guards! Guards!, discworld #8, not my usual reading, but this one is Pratchett at his best, so far. As for Troilus and Criseyde, I've finished Book IV, of V.

>26 chlorine: thats one of the my top reads for this years African Author Challenge. beautifully written indeed. I meant to see what else she has written, wouls like to see more

>28 cindydavid4: In the introduction to my book it is said that Bâ died not long after the publication of Une si longue lettre and just before the publication of her second one, Le chant écarlate (Scarlet Song), so it seems there are just these two books from her unfortunately.
Le chant écarlate does seem interesting, but there are much less reviews for it so it's hard to tell.

Oh my! so sad what a loss. I will look for scarlet song and report back

yeah its in my book too, just didnt read that section. I have SCARLET SONG on its way from the UK, Amazon is selling it for $425. The shipping is higher here, but much cheaper

>31 cindydavid4: Oh indeed it is out of print in French also, which explains why it has se few reviews compared to the other book! I'll be looking forward to your thoughts on it!

I’ve finished Walden and have almost finished St. Matthew’s Gospel. I’ll be continuing to Mark’s account immediately, hoping to reread all four Gospels before Christmas. Two books on hold at the library: Paulette Giles’s Chenneville and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.

I found Walden to be as valuable to me as ever in this rereading. Will try to get a review posted to my thread soon.

I set aside North Woods because my library hold for Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward's new book, came in. I've been struggling with it and will probably flip back to the Daniel Mason. There's no question that her writing is beautiful and the story is brutal, but it's just not for me. I have been struggling to stick with it. I'm sure a lot of readers will love it, but all that mystical magical realism stuff rarely works for me, and it's really not working for me in this one.

>34 Cariola: Too bad about the Jesmyn Ward. I have a library hold on it and I’m looking forward to reading it as I’ve loved all her other books. We shall see…

I am in the middle of A Play for The End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti

Flipping audiobooks. I finished The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett’s first. As I expected, has some good and great aspects, and some issues (namely that 2/3rds reads like an extended epilogue). And now I’m starting The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. The opening 20 minutes, in teen perspective, reads like YA. Lots of not very clever indirect social observers painted into splurge of random mental dialogue. Hoping it gets more sophisticated over its 26(!) hours.

>37 dchaikin: I bought a copy when the Bee Sting became available and have started it a number of times. Please let me know if it gets better after first pages…it must, don’t you think?

>38 dianelouise100: well, it has time to. 🙂

I’ve gotten a couple of chapters into Kim by Rudyard Kipling and finding it a good story. I love a good quest story and in this novel so far, there are two. Also now beginning The Gospel according to Mark in The Harper Collins Study Bible. Not much luck yet getting either Chenneville or The House of Doors.

>40 dianelouise100: are you reading the whole NT? (I used that HarperCollins Study Bible and found it very helpful)

>41 dchaikin: I want to reread the four gospels before Christmas. I find that particular Bible the best for general reading. Just enough help, in a good layout.

>42 dianelouise100: interesting. I did not read it religiously, but tried to read it as literature. (i’m Jewish, and not particularly religious other than in following some traditions). John’s opening is special in a lot of ways, and I always find myself fascinated by it. But Matthew had a lot of literary interest for me.

>40 dianelouise100: I first found a copy of Kim on my sisters shelves when she was away at c olleged Loved kim and his adventures, but I esp loved the description of life in India, its festivals its land. Ive been hooked on India since , and have read many other books I reread it for RG here a few years back, and while I still loved the above, I loved the story and politics invoved (finally learned what the Great Game meant

If you haven't already, take a look at his just so stories, The Elephants Child my fav, used to have the kids act it out, so much fun. the rest of it is good too

>43 dchaikin: Did you read all of the NT? I agree with your take on Matthew, which I’ve just finished. As a practicing Episcopalian, I hear pretty much all the NT over a 3-year cycle, and a large portion of the Hebrew Bible as well. I read over certain parts of NT on my own according to season, though it is Isaiah I read in preparation for Easter.

>45 dianelouise100: back in 2012 I started to read the whole OT, NT and Apocrypha. I started with a group on LT and took it slow, with breaks. Our goal was a literary take. I think i finished in 2018?? I should have a review on that HC study bible page. 🙂

>46 dchaikin: I read your review — impressive! I appreciate the sensitivity with which you read, and love your comments about Revelation, which put that book in a new light for me. In my experience teaching English in high school in St. Louis, I found many (most?) kids pretty ignorant of the contents of the Bible, a big stumbling block in some of the literature we studied.

>47 dianelouise100: i typed up a long response on my phone and it’s gone. 🙁

But thanks for doing all the clicking you must have needed to do to find that and read it. I’m attached to my NT summary review. You might check that if you have more time and curiosity. 🙂

School and the Bible is tough. A hornets nest. It means almost no one learns what it’s like to actually read the Bible.

I finished Half a Cup of Sand and Sky and wanted a palate cleanser, so I grabbed a graphic novel, New Kid, off the shelf.

I've started two books, one fiction and one nonfiction. Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing is both a lovely conversation with David Naimon and a tribute to her by same. They were finishing the book when Le Guin died. The other is Five Bells by Gail Jones. It begins with four different people walking onto the same quay in Sydney and their descriptions of the Sydney Opera House and bridge. Each is very different, yet I was able to picture each and see it in my mind's eye.

More non-fiction for me. Last night I started Deux fois dans le même fleuve: La guerre de Poutine contre les femmes, Sofi Oksanen’s latest book (published in Finnish in October 2023), an extended essay on Russia’s war against women, in Ukraine today but previously in countries occupied by the Soviets (hence the reference to stepping twice in the same river in the title). This French translation came out last week, before the English one, I think.

>51 rachbxl: Ooh, a good reminder for me to look for more of Oksanen's works. I enjoyed Purge years ago.

now reading mister pip that someone recommended to me a while back, and just starting bird girl and the man who followed the sun. for Novembers Indigenous Peoples theme

Just finished Fierce Creatures ... ~meh~ ... and am getting ready to start The Midnight Library.

I finished Troilus and Criseyde, well Chaucer’s part. I’m reading the afterword stuff, which includes source material (and a kind of wonderful poetic epilogue: The Testament of Cresseid (1532) by Robert Henryson)

I also finished Guards! Guards!, from when Terry Pratchett was publishing two Discworld books a year, and basically writing like crazy.

So I’ve picked up The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller and I’m trying to get myself in a properly dreary state of mind. It’s a major mental change.

And, last note. I’m almost seven hours into The Bee Sting (so, like 1/4 in) and there’s not much to it for me so far. The drama is all based on characters being especially clueless. It’s better when i don’t think too much about that.

I'm reading This Other Eden by Paul Harding which I think was on the Booker prize list this year?

I'm also slowly reading Entangled Life, a nature/science book about fungi. It's interesting.

I'm also listening to These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. I don't do much audiobook reading, but I thought this one would work, and I'm enjoying it.

Reading Sergiy Zhadan’s novel The Orphanage

>55 dchaikin: The Washington Post named The Bee Sting one of the 10 best books of the year. https://wapo.st/3QK4pq2

I haven’t been reading for a while lately. Last night I started The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman. Kind of funny because I got McDermott mixed up with Hoffman but ended up reading Hoffman. There’s a cult in the book and I like reading about cults.

>58 dianeham: huh. Interesting

>56 japaul22: This Other Eden has been my favorite of the shortlist so far. The only other one I’ve read is Prophet Song.

>56 japaul22: I'm a big fan of The Other Eden.

I finished Five Bells and have started The House of Rust, a debut novel by a Kenyan author.

I'm still chugging along through 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories. 87 down, 13 to go!

I’m reading Paul Auster’s new book Baumgartner.

>64 dianeham: a couple years ago someone gave me eleven(!) Auster novels. I’ve read one (it was terrific). I’m curious how the new one is.

Oh I love his books, which one did you read? also curious how the new one is

my review of bird girl and the man who followed the sun is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/351927#n8284631

Uni is finished so I now have time and brain space for new books. So of course I decide to re-read the Murderbot Diaries :-). In my defence, it's in preparation to read System Collapse. I'm up to Artifical Condition. I started The City We Became because I can now finish the duology having bought number two. I'm also reading A Sinister Revenge.

(All this talk lately of the murderbot series has me wanting to read it. It's available for my kindle. Hmm...)

I recently finished Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann by Keith William Nolan. This is a well written history of an American military debacle during the last stages of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. My full review is up on my Club Read thread.

I'm now reading an enjoyable pulp thriller, Intrigue in Paris by Sterling Noel. The book was originally published under the name Storm over Paris. My Avon edition was printed in 1955, making it more or less exactly as old as I am!

>65 dchaikin: >66 cindydavid4:

Interview
‘This might be the last thing I ever write’: Paul Auster on cancer, connection and the fallacy of closure

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/18/paul-auster-on-cancer-connection-a...

>68 labfs39: You should. While I am not as enamored as a lot of other people, I found the first one to be entertaining in a good way - without the preaching and throwing things into your face as some other modern books in the genre seem to but without being completely old fashioned either.

>70 dianeham: thanks for that link. Interesting article.

So, I finished Troilus and Criseyde, even the afterward stuff. Feels like a closure of sorts. (But I think I’ll start Canterbury Tales soon enough…and carry that into 2024)

>70 dianeham: thanks, great article. Now I have to add that to the list....

>68 labfs39: The first Murderbot books are very short so if you are on a fence it will not be a big time commitment to check out the first one and see if you like it.

>76 labfs39: Everybody seems to be rereading the series in preparation for the new volume. 194 holds on the ebook at the library.

I recently finished Tirra Lirra by the River a well-written story of an older woman looking back on her life. It was followed by Whatever, in which a young man does not look forward to life.

I’ve finished Kim, which I really liked. Don’t know why I’d never read it, but in the case of this book, I probably liked it now better than I would have earlier on. Audio added so much to its appeal—I enjoy reading and listening to a story simultaneously, especially when names are foreign to me. Still trying to settle what I’ll read next.

ust finished pip an amazingly well written book thats more than about Great Expectations, but what happens when your rulers cant read....didnt realize this was based on civil war in paupa new guinea, where thousands died. Ill have to read more on that, in the meantime, thought this review was on target "

"You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames."

would like to read more by him, any suggestions?

I’ve settled in to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which has been sitting on a shelf so long that its pages have yellowed. Still perfectly readable, though, and I’m already enjoying it after the little I read last night.

>55 dchaikin: >58 dianeham: I found The Bee Sting to be one of my favorite reads this year.
>64 dianeham: Big fan of Auster. I will look for this.
>70 dianeham: Thank you for that link.

I just finished A Day in the Life of Abed Salamas by Nathan Thrall, a look at Palestinian life in the West Bank. It was published just days before the Hamas terrorist attack in October. It is excellent.

>81 arubabookwoman: well, today I’m into The Bee Sting (Imelda section)

I’m starting A Moveable Feast, Hemmingway’s memories of 1920’s Paris.

>78 dianelouise100: I read Kim ages ago and remember really liking it. Your comment makes me wonder if I would like it even better now that I'm older.

>80 dianelouise100: I read The poisonwood bible a few years ago and was really impressed. Enjoy!

>82 dchaikin:--I hope that means you are liking it more Dan.

>83 chlorine: loved kim as a teen; and even more so when I read it a few decades back.go for it!

>83 chlorine: If you do reread Kim, the narrator of the AB was Sam Dastor, found it on Libby. He does a very fine job, especially with the lama.

I appreciate knowing about your enjoyment of The Poisonwood BIble, apparently there’ve been some negative reviews. I’m still into it, and very curious.

>84 arubabookwoman: yes. I’m like it a lot right now.

I've just finished Rogue Protocol. I'd forgotten how it ended :-(.

I too am a fan of Poisonwood Bible (although I thought the final chapters detracted a bit). According to Wikipedia, when Kingsolver was 7, her family moved to Leopoldville, Congo, where they lived without electricity or running water. Her parents were involved in public health. So she had some first-hand memories.

>86 dianelouise100: Do you remember what the gist of the negative reviews were? The book has a 4.1+ average rating on LT so most here were positive.

>88 rhian_of_oz: I finished Artifical Condition yesterday so should start Rogue Protocol in a few days. I completely do not remember how it ends. :p

>89 labfs39: I’ve actually not read reviews, usually don’t before finishing a book. When I posted plans for reading the book on another thread, RT, one response indicated that the writer had read negative reviews, but was interested in reading it anyway. Then other comments were similar to yours, from people who were positive about PB, but did have some reservations. I enjoy hearing what other LT’ers might say—my interest is really piqued now, and the book goes well.

I finished the enjoyable pulp thriller from 1955, Intrigue in Paris, by Sterling Noel. The book was originally published with the name Storm over Paris. It's not a particularly plausible story, but it was still fun to read. Noel was actually a pretty good writer. I've posted a bit of a review on my Club Read thread and on the book's work page.

Next up, I'll be dipping back into E.F. Benson's humorous Mapp and Lucia series with Mapp and Lucia, the book that bears the series' title but is actually the fourth of six entries.

I struggled with, but now have just finished The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller.

visitation Im not quite sure what to make of it. Its so different from kairos,but it has me curious

>93 dchaikin: I'm eager to hear your thoughts. It was a book I could appreciate to an extent, but not enjoy. I called it "a collage of flat emotions and colorless landscapes."

>95 labfs39: The Land of Green Plums is relentlessly dark. But i think i still would have really enjoyed it in the right state of mind, say where i was ten years ago. But seems I’m in a different place. I did appreciate it.

The great thing about having finished uni but not yet having a full-time job is how much reading time I have! Yesterday I read Exit Strategy and Murder On Cold Street and today I started Dear Miss Kopp.

>97 rhian_of_oz: Congrats! The time is like a reward for a job well done.

During the holiday season, I often find I have so much on my mind that I need fun, easy books. Right now I'm reading a thriller The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz that grabbed me right away. I'm also listening to Ann Patchett's These Precious Days, a book of essays that is really lovely. I actually bought physical copies for both my mom and mother in law.

I started my book club selection this morning, I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House by Stephanie Grisham. Has anyone read it? Not my usual fare, but once I actually opened the book (our meeting is Monday), I became caught up in the drama.

>100 labfs39: no, but I'm curious.

I'm flying through Hemmingway's unexpectedly very short, and quite wonderful, Moveable Feast. I also started Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee, who I haven't read before. I was greeted with a lot of meta, from the first sentence.

>101 dchaikin: not Coetzee’s best book imo.

>102 dianeham: it’s the first time I’m reading him.

>102 dianeham: the first chapter, on Realism, was terrific.

I just picked up Enon by Paul Harding.

Made the "mistake" :-) of stopping by the LBS today.... Bought Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six and got a free ARC of Tana French's latest, The Hunter, which doesn't want to link. (Popular title, though -- lots of books by that name!)

>106 LyndaInOregon: what is LBS?

I read the first short story in Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing, "The Ultimate Safari" by Nadine Gordimer. I think it's going to be an interesting collection.

>107 dianeham: "LBS" = Local Book Store ... Don't know if it's commonly used here, but I've been in other groups that use LBS for local book store (as opposed to Big Box stores) and UBS for used book store.

>109 LyndaInOregon: ah, i figured bs was bookstore but didn’t get local. What if Powell’s was your LBS?

>110 dianeham: "What if Powell’s was your LBS?"

I'd be in heaven. (And I'd probably never come out.....) :-)

>111 LyndaInOregon:. "'"What if Powell’s was your LBS?'

I'd be in heaven. (And I'd probably never come out.....) :-)"

A real life conversation between my wife and me during our one and only (so far) visit to Powell's:

Me: They ship!
Her: Uh oh.

Next up in my inadvertant historical mystery theme is Castle Shade.

I really enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible and found it well worth reading. I have some reservations about its continuing for a hundred pages or so after the crisis occurs in the plot, because the change in tone seems anticlimactic. But I think the last part is necessary, just not sure how well integrated it is. I can’t write an immediate review, still reflecting on the story and characters, but for anyone interested in Africa and specifically in the history of the Congo in the 1960’s, this book should provide a good read. I always have trouble finding my next book after reading something so absorbing.

>115 dianelouise100: I'm glad you liked The Poisonwood Bible!
Yes, finding a next book to read is a bit daunting. Maybe a few short stories?

I’m reading, not for the first time, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels. It didn’t seem to stick when I read it before.

Nearly done with The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine, again but have also started a non-fiction Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th by Harry Dunn.

While fighting an annoying head cold, I needed something lighter and picked up Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. 50 pages in it is... lightweight. But somewhat readable so I will probably read some more before I decide if I want to finish it.

>120 AnnieMod: Hope you win the fight against the head cold, I spent a week plus the holiday with a bad chest cold. No fun. Hang in there!

I finished Elizabeth Costello, which turns out to be a novel of essays on ideas, largely on the ethics of eating meat. Apparently Coetzee used his own published essays, along with negative (but apparently thoughtful) responses. Anyway, it makes a weird novel that alternates between great reading (chapter 1, on Realism) and pretty dull reading.

I gobbled up Murder In Williamstown yesterday so I have two library books left - Hokey Pokey and Winterborne Home For Mayhem And Mystery. I'm not sure yet which one I'll read next.

>121 avaland: Thanks! Hope you feel better - this thing hit me on Thanksgiving Day (better than last year when I got Covid that week so....). I am somewhat winning. Having to work this week did not help much but I survived a full day of meetings yesterday and I can breathe properly (mostly) so... all is good. Still reading the book - it is charming (and slow...) but suits my mood just now.

>124 AnnieMod: Thanks, I'm back to normal although I did miss the Thanksgiving meal. Go ahead and whine if you need to but it sounds like you are on the mend.

been picking up books and putting them down, unsatisfied. The covenant of water was starring at me from my TBR shelves, and by golly if that did do trick. Very good thus far

Picked up Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger today. I want to call the opening pages spectral - unnamed characters having an interesting discussion with no context, and with sometimes semi-coherent/semi-incoherent math-jargon-splattered language. Ghosts speaking ghostly to me.

Finished listening to The Lake House for my book club. I'm driving to Rapid City for our family Christmas on Friday, so I wanted something not too long, and light-hearted. It's been a couple years since my last 44 Scotland Street series book, so I've started The Revolving Door of Life. That will also serve to kick off my main theme for next year, which I have decided is "Doors." Not sure what it will be for the drive back. I have several holds waiting, but they are telling me "2 weeks."

On iPad, I'm reading Alba is Mine (no touchstone). And trying to finish up some other leftovers.

have a safe and fun trip! btw check your messages

>129 cindydavid4: I saw. Thank you. Sounds interesting!

I just started another Maisie Dobbs mystery, A Lesson in Secrets. I have a hard time sticking with mystery series, but this one is still working for me (up to #8).

On audio, I started Dave Grohl's book, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music. Dave Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana and Foo Fighters and he grew up in Springfield, VA, where I live. It's really fun.

I managed to read several novellas in November, but not as many as I hoped. I really enjoyed Tirra Lirra by the River, a solid good read of an older woman looking back on her file. I felt a little blah about Whatever (he is not an author for me). Blood Red was a strange book, there is a sudden shift in tone and style mid-way through. Sacrifices is a collection of weird, edge-of-horror short stories (if you liked Revenge this might also appeal). But The Diesel was the most out there. A very short stream-of-consciousness novella about a gender fluid person in UAE. The closest comparison is Jeanette Winterson, but it made less sense to me than her strangest works.

I also read the longer, non-fictional fiction In Memory of Memory. Some sections were fantastic, others bored me. She references W.G. Sebald a lot.

I finished the anthology Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing and am starting State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang.

Ten reads and one DNF in November, with the standouts this month being one of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's early blog collections, All Wound Up, and an unexpected treasure from Sandra Kring, The Book of Bright Ideas, which is about a magical summer friendship between two young girls, ending in a mixture of loss and hope.

Also-rans included Baby Catcher, by Peggy Vincent, and The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin. Interestingly enough, Vincent's book is about midwifery in California, in the 80's and 90's when the craft attained a brief popularity and acceptance before insurance issues and active resistance from Big Med put mainstream childbirth and control of the birthing experience firmly back into the hands of M.D.s. NPR did a feature story this weekend regarding women who are bringing lawsuits against several doctors and hospitals for what they say are abusive practices that take all control from the laboring mom and impose the kind of "standard" childbirth practices the midwife movement was designed to bypass.

The LTER book, Who to Believe, by Edwin Hill, didn't really have much suspense, as most of the characters (and a few of the victims) were people you really didn't want to root for.

The month was rounded out with The Cat-Sitter's Cradle, a cozy mystery by Blaize and John Clement, Fierce Creatures, a movie adaptation by Iain Johnstone, and an uneven WWII on-the-home-front novel from Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days.

Duds of the month included Early Morning Rounds, by Burnham Holmes, and the DNF, Self Care, by Leigh Stein. Holmes' book was actually intended for junior high / high school audiences, so it was more a matter of my not paying attention to the target audience when I picked it up, but it was also written in the early 80s, so much of the material is badly dated. The DNF was also a clear miss of target audience with me, being about self-involved internet influencers (is that a redundancy?).

Hope everyone has their Wish List ready for Santa, and that there will be lots of good reading under the Christmas tree!

Finished Serhiy Zhadan's The Orphanage....an unusual novel... I keep opening the book up to random pages to read again.

>135 avaland: That went straight to the wishlist.

>136 labfs39: Wait for my review before you buy it...

Now reading a memoir, Standing My Ground: A Capital Police officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th by Harry Dunn. It certainly has my attention....

I've recently finished Mapp and Lucia the fourth book in E.F.Benson's series of the same name about this pair of upper middle-class busybodies ruling the social sets of their respective small English towns between the World Wars. In this fourth novel (which has also sometimes been published with the title Make Way for Lucia), the two finally come together, and things do not go smoothly. The series is a set of wonderful comedies of manners, quite enjoyable if one goes in for this sort of gentle (most of the time) satire.

Next up for me will be a novel about New Orleans first published in 1946, Those Other People by Mary King O'Donnell. And that's about all I know about this book other than the facts that a) my lovely old hardcover has been in my LT library since 2011 and b) the only Legacy Library the book is included in is Louis Armstrong's.

I'm currently reading How to Take Over the World by Ryan North, which is a lot of fun and surprisingly informative.

I started Italian Backgrounds for my Wharton group on Litsy. It’s a travel book from 1905. So far it makes me want to go to Switzerland, in 1905 of course. Specifically - Splügen.

I picked up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo at the airport and read it on the flight to Brisbane to visit with my brother and his family. It was fun.

I'm reading An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage - it's _excellent_. It covers some periods I've read about before, from a slightly different angle, which is fascinating. He's writing about how food (cultivating, trading, eating) has had major effects on history - things like, the Potato Famine was one of the triggers that shifted Britain from an agricultural to an industrial society. Or that the early successes of both Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte were based on them figuring out how to feed their armies without bogging them down with huge cart trains. Or...I keep reading bits of it to my mom, and I've convinced her to get it from the library.

I have a couple others by him, but I don't think I'll go straight to those - I will read them, and probably soon, but not immediately. I'm halfway through An Edible History and having to dash off and read other, lighter, books from time to time (read Deeds of Youth by Elizabeth Moon in one evening, an excellent palate cleanser, for instance).

here at the end of the world we learn to dance and really loving it. Im googling the different music that is mentioned in the book to get the tango vibe! Its a dance Iveseen many times but dont know how myself so may need to spend some time learning

>142 jjmcgaffey: An Edible History sounds like it will make a lovely companion piece to A History of the World in 6 Glasses. And when I looked up the latter to double-check the title, I realized they are by the same author. Square hit by that book bullet!

Finished Offiicer Harry Dunn's memoir of Jan. 6th and it's aftermath.

Starting another (older) collection of poetry by Ukrainian author, poet, musician, activist...etc
What We Live For, What We Die For.